


How to Disappear Completely

by misshoneywell



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F, F/M, implied threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:18:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshoneywell/pseuds/misshoneywell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All they ever wanted was Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Disappear Completely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amelia_Day (amelia_day)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia_day/gifts).



Peeta Mellark had loved Katniss Everdeen for what amounted to almost the entire twenty-two years of his life, and in that sentiment, Madge Undersee was not far behind him.

They had doted upon her in equal measure for as long as either of them could remember, Katniss treating them in turn like two beloved pets that she didn’t quite know how to handle—often mystified, but always fondly tolerant of their attentions.

The townsfolk thought it to be a strange arrangement, but it had not fazed the three friends, nor had it served to break the bonds that they had created despite circumstance and social standings often standing against them.

They were inseparable, bonded together by a singular love of one oblivious girl.

_“You’ll be my wife someday, won’t you, Katniss?” ten year old Peeta asks, trailing beside her valiantly as they skip across rocks in the meadow stream, Madge a step behind._

_“I’m never getting married,” she calls back as she leaves him in the dust, scampering across the flat stones as if she is part animal. “But you’ve got Madge,” she adds, her voice disappearing as she shoots off into the distance, leaving the two blondes to stare at each other distastefully._

————————————————————————

Primrose Everdeen died on the day of her last Reaping, shocking all of District 12 when she dropped like a stone in the middle of a swarm of possible tributes, a sudden blood vessel bursting in her brain.

That was also the day Katniss Everdeen all but disappeared completely, leaving behind two incomplete people who loved her more than life itself.

They mourned Katniss as if she were dead, too, so gripped were they in the throes of a grief deep enough to sink and settle into their very core. As the dark pressed down upon them each day of her absence, they despaired, thinking only of the night falling on her head somewhere in a place where they could not reach her.

———————————————————————

The third day of Katniss’ disappearance, Peeta waited on the bakery steps, his eyes on the horizon.

She would come to him; he knew she would.

Every morning for the past sixteen years, Peeta had waited on the back steps of the Mellark Bakery, patiently anticipating the moment that Katniss would come to collect him. Sometimes it was to walk to school together, or to visit Madge, or to claim the freshest, most tenderly made cheese buns that Peeta would bake specifically for her during the morning rush.

After his parents retired and left him in charge of the bakery, she would sit with him on the steps and enjoy a cup of hot tea before he was expected back inside, kissing him on the cheek and whispering in his ear before treading towards the Undersee home.

So, he waited, because that’s what he did. What they always did.

But, she didn’t come.

————————————————————————

She didn’t come the next day, either.

————————————————————————

On the seventh morning of abandonment, Peeta burned every last loaf of bread.

On the tenth morning, he punched the wall of the bakery until the webs of his fingers split.

Two weeks later, Madge came.

“C’mon,” she said gently, appearing at his elbow as he sat staring at the tree line, his eyes willing a familiar shape to appear.

————————————————————————

It was Madge who helped Peeta tend to the bakery while he was practically catatonic in despair.

It was Madge who finally made him smile, cracking a deadpan joke that caught him off-guard one especially bleak afternoon.

And, it was Madge who pressed him into the bed on the thirty-ninth day that marked Katniss’ absence, riding him slowly and methodically as they both cried out for a person of a different name, a girl who was half-wild for trees and the wind and a dead sister.

—————————————————————

“I’m pregnant,” she said one morning as Peeta sat on the steps, still waiting for Katniss to collect him.

It’s yours,” she added unnecessarily. They looked at each other blankly.

————————————————————————

They married on a sunny, spring day, Madge’s stomach slightly rounded underneath her white, Capitol-made dress, her face turned towards the forest even as Peeta placed a crisp piece of bread into her mouth. He clenched his fists reflexively and stared at a dandelion as he accepted Madge’s offering, thinking only of a black braid, guarded smiles and the voice of a songbird.

As the crowd dispersed, and congratulations were given, a lone form in the distance dropped from a tree and walked swiftly back into the wooded thicket before Madge or Peeta could do anything but blink in rapid succession.

————————————————————————

“I hate her,” Peeta swore, grinding his hips into his new wife. “I hate her. I hate her,” he chanted in a low, agonized moan, grey eyes haunting his every thrust.

“Me, too,” Madge murmured, running a hand up his back, thinking only of smooth olive skin and full, scowling lips.

They came together but apart, the lies still thick on their tongues.

————————————————————————

The day Peeta stopped waiting for Katniss to collect him was the day three fat squirrels appeared on his bakery steps. Blue eyes frantically searched the horizon, but all that greeted him was a continued wasteland of grief and regret.

He threw up twice while cleaning the fresh game, but it had nothing to do with his bloody task.

He didn’t tell Madge.

————————————————————————

Three days later, a bundle of strawberries appeared, still slightly coated in dew and wrapped in the thick leaf of a plant that Peeta only recognized as being “from over the fence.”

“This is for you,” he said flatly, holding the parcel out to his wife. She placed a hand to her swollen stomach as she regarded the strawberries.

They stared at each other with a thinly veiled emotion, the ghost of a living girl sliding between them again quite neatly, irrevocably, and unforgettably.

————————————————————————

It was an obscene hour on an apocalyptically stormy night when the dripping wet figure stood in their warm, cheery kitchen.

They fussed over her, performing a strange, jostling dance as one of them toweled her inky, soaked hair, while the other plied her with hot tea and bits of gooey cheese pastries.

Peeta trembled as he wiped Katniss’ face with the softest hand towel in their possession, and she stared at him, lips parted and breathing heavily, already leaning into him unconsciously.

“I’ll run you a bath,” Madge murmured, backing away from them as she watched Peeta grasp the other girl’s fingers.

Katniss’ free hand shot out, grabbing Madge gently but firmly by the wrist.

“Run  _us_  a bath,” she said, looking back and forth between them.

————————————————————————

She stayed two days.

Two blissful days with the “closed” sign on the bakery door, three warm bodies entangled in the Mellark marital bed, soft hands entwined with her calloused ones, a strong arm slung across her chest, and feminine lips breathing softly, deeply and peacefully into her ear.

When morning dawned on the third day, and she crept away and back into the wilderness that had become her shroud, it was Peeta who had to be the strong one, baking Madge back together again one day at a time.

————————————————————————

After sixteen hours of what the midwife declared to be the most intense labor that she had ever assisted with, a small, golden-tufted baby girl with cupid bow lips, baker’s eyes and strong lungs entered into the world.

Peeta stroked his wife’s brow and thanked her for their child, and she smiled dreamily down at the bundle in her arms.

“She loves us, doesn’t she, Peeta?” Madge asked. He looked down at the baby and then back at her.

“Of course,” he said, confusion giving way to a numb sort of dread as he saw the red wetness overtaking the blankets, and the growing alarm in the midwife’s eyes as she worked between Madge’s legs.

“Do you think she’ll come to us?” Madge asked weakly, reaching out to clutch Peeta’s hand.

“Yes, I- I think she will,” Peeta said softly, staring over her head to meet the midwife’s regretful gaze.

“I want her to come,  _so_  much,” she said, her voice growing faint. “I want her to love our baby…”

Her hand grew limp in his grasp.

————————————————————————

The girl approached the bakery door, briefly toeing the back step with the tip of her worn boot, desperately wanting to enter but haunted with a heavy cloud of regret.

Her head snapped up as she registered the shrill, wailing cries mixed with low, distressed tones behind the door, and she pushed it open, her prior hesitation all but forgotten. He needed her.

Peeta sat on the bakery floor, his back to the wall and his face a mask of helpless despair, a shrieking bundle cradled in his arms.

“She won’t stop crying,” he said blankly.

Katniss strode over and slid down the wall to sit next to him, reaching over to gently pry the baby from his arms.

She stopped crying.

Peeta watched as Katniss cooed and murmured to his child. He allowed her to pull him up and lead him into his bedroom. She placed the now sleeping baby into its crib before turning her attention to the baby’s father, slowly undressing him and pressing kisses into his neck.

“Will you stay with us?” he asked, his voice breaking as he leaned into her heavily. “Will you stay, Katniss?”

She whispered into his ear, and the birds stopped to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt "accidental baby acquisition" on Tumblr.


End file.
